This is a story about mice and about men.
In the spacious, densely filled auditorium of La Ballona School last evening, there was supposed to be a head-clearing community meeting to respond to troubling questions uncomfortable neighbors had raised at a similar session a month ago about a proposed mixed-used affordable housing project in the Tellefson Park region.
Probably more than a hundred neighbors were in the room.
In trying to smooth out last month’s firmly embedded wrinkles in residents’ minds, organizers anticipated that a single recurring phrase could haunt, if not dominate, the evening: affordable housing. The overriding fear is that it inevitably brings a spike in crime. One of last night’s tallest challenges was whether they could dissuade such historic thinking.
Painstakingly, they tried to calmly wash away the thumping fear with data, studies and reasoned pleas.
Planners from the unique building company and from City Hall have been making this circuit through residential neighborhoods long enough to sense when a crowd, on the edge, is poised to pounce on misplaced commas and especially misplaced locations.
With land use consultant Dana Sayles fronting the lengthy program that already was 20 minutes late starting, speakers from the reputable 21-year-old Los Angeles Housing Partnership and City Hall veterans Tevis Barnes and Gabe Garcia seemed to be scrupulous in trying to unmask each abstraction that weights down building projects.
It Should Not Be Scary
They hammered away hard at what they called huge number of safeguards that encircle the all of the Housing Partnership’s already built 1,200 affordable housing units around Los Angeles. They have built an average of about one complex a year since being formed in 1989. They spoke with the directness of grammar school teachers, almost pedantically but not patronizingly.
And still, some might argue, their meticulously knitted together strategy blew up despite the efforts of the would-be builders and their City Hall endorsers.
At this moment, mice, men, plans, even the best-laid ones, stealthily entered the auditorium.
As the meeting was reaching the yawning stage, a lady at the back of the room raised the most illustrative, image-triggering question about a confusingly presented formula.
One of the strongest objections by a chorus of neighbors to the affordable housing plan on the old Washington Boulevard site of the since-razed Pleasantview halfway house:
The sheer number of units, 33. Residents complain that they live inside a terrifically busy commercial/residential complex of crisscrossing, mis-shapen streets, where Washington Boulevard and Washington Place dovetail. Combining already sparse parking with nearly intolerable, and creative, traffic leaves no room for a new multi-, multi-family settlement.
In Quest of an Uncomplicated Answer
The lady said her name was Sheena. She was both nettled and confused. Ms. Barnes, in her presentation, described three different kinds of affordable housing tenants who will inhabit Tilden Terrace, 10 of one kind, 10 of another and 5 of another. That totals 25.
Yet, said the lady, the Housing Partnership speakers have been talking about 33 housing units atop ground-floor retail.
Oops. And ouch.
Ms. Barnes explained that of the property the Housing Partnership proposes to take over, the portion owned by the Redevelopment Agency will accommodates 25 units — hence, the 10-10-5 formula she gave.
Ms. Sayles sought to recover from the oops moment by explaining that the land over which the other 8 units will be built is presently occupied.
Ms. Sayles did not explain how residents, already upset, were supposed to know that.
At another juncture, Ms. Sayles, grasping for traffic-calming rhetoric, told an audience of skeptics that in an effort to control the increase in traffic around Tilden Terrace, there would be separate building entrances for retail traffic and residential traffic. By count, 32 jaws in the room dropped, and one person said:
“When the increase in the number of cars blends with the traffic already there, how can we tell the difference and what difference will it make anyway?”
Desmond Burns of Bentley Avenue leads a faction of residents who believe present inequities should be corrected before a giant structure parachutes into the neighborhood. He has lived in the area for 29 years, and he captured the feisty mood of the audience. “There is a traffic problem,” he said. “There is a parking problem. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. Residents know there is insufficient parking for the present residents. Solve the parking problem. Solve the traffic problem. Solve the (zig-zag) intersection problem (where Washington Boulevard and Place meet). Then let’s discuss developing and let’s discuss putting 33 units on that property.
“If the (Housing Partnership) has a traffic specialist, who is looking out for the residents? We need to get a traffic mediation that will examine and study our neighborhood. Who is looking out for the interest of the city? If we need to get an independent traffic mediator, I am all for that. Let’s get it done. The housing authority has its traffic specialist. You (he was looking in the direction of Mr. Garcia) are looking out for the city. Who is looking out for the interests of residents? Someone needs to answer that tonight, not when the development goes up.”
